What Happened to Facebook?

In addition to keeping track of friends and family, Facebook also enables users to indulge in a little casual gaming to help pass the time. Originally these games were all very simple 'click the button to get some set outcome' affairs with people who wanted to click the button more often having to pay some real world money for the privilege. Farmville was the king of these early days with its 'click the button to choose what new buttons to make and where to put them, and then get your friends to click those buttons' system having enough window dressing to make it seem like a deeper experience than it actually was. And so it was that after a brief dabble I gave up on Facebook games, that is until I saw a notification saying 'your friend is play CivWorld'.

I've always enjoyed occasionally playing the Civilisation games (while I always enjoy playing them I just can't ever seem to bring my self to play through them more than twice, the exception being the original Civilisation and Colonisation on the Amiga) and thought I'd check it out. I was pleasantly surprised, rather than running a whole nation you are given control of a single city which you decide they layout of and also which resources it will generate. While basic resource gathering is still a simple click the button experience, CivWorld manages to make that the minor part of the game. Most of your play time involves gathering additional resources through minigames, joining a nation, and taking part in votes to determine which path to victory your nation should pursue. While I did enjoy playing the game I still had the same old problem of after playing through twice I couldn't really be bothered playing it again (yes unlike most other Facebook games CivWorld has an end).

I next saw that people were playing The Sims Social and again my interest was peaked. Much like with CivWorld I was pleasantly surprised by this game. The main differences between The Sims Social and a normal Sims game is that you only control a single Sim and can only carry out a set number of actions per unit time (unless you are willing to part with real world money). In addition to the usual teach your Sim skills to get money and upgrade their house, the game sets lots of small goals to keep you playing and interested. What ultimately killed my desire to play The Sims Social was that it was too popular and I was receiving so many notifications and requests from other players that it just got annoying (I know that you can adjust how these messages are handled but they should default to off and not make me put in the extra effort to remove them).

The final game I will talk about is War Metal: Tyrant an on-line CCG. What makes Tyrant enjoyable is that it has a main quest arc which, as you play through, gives you more and better cards; in addition to this you can battle other players, form factions, and take part in tournaments that have in-game prize support. While the actual game is neither ground breaking nor revolutionary it is enjoyable enough, its biggest problem is that the game usually comes down to who can build the most momentum in the first few turns, making the second half of the match often a forgone conclusion.

I am pleased to say that the quality of games on Facebook has greatly improved over the years and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this gaming medium. I just hope that future games are less intrusive and find a way to do away with the play limits for non-subscribers (maybe in-game product placement would fix this, although The Sims Social has both product placement and energy limits).

The Difficulty Slide

In most video games as the player progresses the difficulty of the game increases, this change in difficulty is known as the difficulty curve. Some of the reasons for changing a game’s difficulty are that as players gets more experienced and skilled at playing the game they require a larger challenge to keep them interested, it lets you ‘upgrade’ the player's character enabling changes and new challenges that fit the game's narrative, and by having a mixture of easy and difficult sections you can create feelings of tension and relief for the player.

The first of these reasons is the simplest to illustrate. Consider Tetris, as the player clears more lines the speed with which the new blocks drop increases, meaning that a player must develop better and faster reflexes to progress further through the game; if however the speed didn’t change, a competent player could keep playing indefinitely, or at least until they got bored. The other two reasons are tailored to the game world and usually involve equipment and skill upgrades coupled with the introduction of new more challenging situations. It is also possible and fun to have the threat introduced before the solution, meaning that a player will have to run and hide during the early sections of the game, but later on after receiving the appropriate upgrade will be able to stand and fight; of cause after letting the player feel comfortable and in control for a while a new bigger threat should be introduced.

However, there are quite a few games, primarily in the casual/mobile gaming market, that feel the need to have large amounts of game content locked at the start. This content is unlocked not by progressing the story, but by rather by collecting specific game world items that can then be exchanged for the new features or by paying some additional amount of real world money. What really makes these games different is that the upgrades are bought after you lose your current game and apply to your future games, making them easier. For example in the iOS game Mega Jump, your progression through the game depends on collecting enough coins to not fall, after the eventual falling to your doom you can then use the coins gathered to by new upgrades such as a magnet which will pull the coins towards you making it easier to collect them, easier to progress further, and easier to buy new upgrades which will again make the game easier.

There are two main reasons for this difficulty slide. Firstly, it is a way for the developers to make some extra money off the game, as some people will want all the upgrades and features available from the start. Secondly, it can increase the replay value of the game as players try to unlock all the content. While these reasons are understandable in the casual and free games market there are plenty of full price games which also use this model. For example, in the on-rails shooter House of the Dead: Overkill as you progress you can buy access to better guns, which is fine as the levels also get harder except that these better guns can also be used in any earlier level and the high score table doesn’t make a note of what weapons were used, making them rather pointless early on. Personally I think that a better way to add replay value to such a game is by simply putting the high score table online. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is also an on-rails shooter, but the weapons you start with are the same as the weapons you finish with and the replay value comes from the games high difficulty and online leader boards.

I will finish by clarifying that I do not consider the ‘New Game +’ feature (starting the game again with all the upgrades, equipment, and abilities you had when you won it) found in some games to be the same as the difficulty slide. This feature is to enable players who have already won the game to go back and look for secrets and bonuses they may have missed the first time through.

Angry at the Birds

Angry Birds is one of the big success stories of the mobile gaming market, over 12 million copies have been sold through Apple’s App Store and a further 30 million free copies of the game have been downloaded for Android based systems. This means the iOS version alone has outsold World of Warcraft and has put up similar sales figures to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360.

In case you are unfamiliar with Angry Birds, the idea of the game is this: some pigs stole the bird’s eggs and now they are going to get revenge by using a slingshot to fling themselves at the pigs and their shelters, killing the pigs. As the player you are responsible for aiming the slingshot and activating any special powers the birds might have.

The game has an 80% rating on metacritic which means generally favourable reviews. Games with this metascore do not usually sell 12 million copies. Personally I just don’t like the game, I have tried to play it several times, I’ve played the full iOS version, the lite iOS version and the free Google Chrome version, which I noticed had 7,887,822 Facebook likes, and every time I found myself getting bored and wanting to play or do something else. However, let’s break down the different facets of the game and consider them.

Story: The story is simple silly fun and only serves to give a context for the gameplay. However, for a puzzle game the story really isn’t important, Tetris has no plot and I’m quite happy to play that for hours on end.

Gameplay: I find the way that you can’t see the targets when aiming with the birds frustrating and contributes to a lack of precision. Having to retry a level because you narrowly missed the last pig that was just standing out in the open does not make the game challenging but rather more annoying. While it is fun to knock down virtual blocks and buildings I find that other games, such as Boom Blox, better cater to this urge. One thing that the game does get right is the short amount of time it takes to play through a level (win or lose) which is useful when gaming on the go.

Graphics: The large cartoony graphics are easy to follow and give a reasonable aesthetic to the game, also the unique look of the birds and the pigs helps to create a recognisable franchise.

Lasting appeal: The game introduces new types of birds and more difficult levels as it progresses which does provide an incentive to keep playing. However, I’ve never found myself wanting to repeat a level.

Value for money: Obviously I can’t fault anyone for downloading a free game, but for all those 12 million people who actually paid for Angry Birds I just find myself asking why? The App Store has many, many games of similar or better entertainment value available for free or at budget prices. Furthermore, the free app of the day scheme enables you to get titles that previously retailed for a couple of dollars for free!

From this I must conclude that my dislike for the game comes down to two things. First, the gameplay and second, from a sense of injustice; why is this game a multimillion unit seller when there are much better games that struggle to make it past even 100,000 units?